


Alley Cat

by iselsis



Series: Accidental Kitten Acquisition [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canon Hardware Rules: Nail it or Screw It, Fluff, Gen, Good Parent Selina Kyle, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jason Todd Gets A Hug, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd Steals the Batmobile Tires, Kid Jason Todd, Maternal Instinct, Platonic Cuddling, Street Rat Jason Todd, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:26:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iselsis/pseuds/iselsis
Summary: Batman and Catwoman are just finishing up patrol and heading back home when they realize that someone is stealing their tires. And, well, Selina always had a thing for strays.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & the Batmobile Tires, Selina Kyle & Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle & Jason Todd, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Series: Accidental Kitten Acquisition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024870
Comments: 59
Kudos: 580
Collections: Jason Todd Steals the Batmobile Tires





	Alley Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Me: It is 3:30 in the morning and I have church to be at at nine, not to mention that I need to finish more of the story about the stripper cop in a bank robbery before then to impress that guy I like, and I already have six open tabs for the stories/chapters that I've only been able to half finish due to bad post-covid fatigue. Shut up. No more.  
> My creativity: Okay, but Selina and Bruce _both_ find Jason trying to steal the Batmobile tires.  
> Me:....I'm listening.  
> My creativity: Right, so Jason is ten, and....  
> *needs to be up at eight* *finishes at seven* why must my weird fatigue thing give me such random energy spikes? I'm going to die now, or at least pass out.

Selina oscillated between the peace that being reformed had brought her, and the constant itch to steal any sparkly thing left mildly unguarded. She swore, those stupid galas she was dragged to as the new, or relatively new, Mrs. Wayne were _hell_. Or maybe she’d already died and was paying for her crimes in some twisted version of purgatory that left her with a husband, an adopted teenage son, a man who toed the line between doting father-in-law and loyal butler so much that the line was really just a smudge on the floor (leaning toward father-in-law, of course—butlers don’t hint for grandbabies), and raging kleptomania. 

Patrolling with Bruce helped. It also helped convince Dick to stay home during the school week as well with only mild grumbling from the fifteen-year-old. She didn’t like him hitting the streets at _all_. The boy had woken her horrid maternal instincts the first time he dropped from an air vent in front of her wearing green panties to fight crime, and despite the years of frustration and denial, she had never been able to quash them. She’d stolen the little bird from his bat to prove a point—anyone could steal his boy if they tried hard enough, and parading him in _underwear_ in front of a bunch of lowlifes and thugs was asking for one of them to do it. She’d eventually been forced to give Dick back, but not before Batman had agreed to pants, no matter how sentimental Dick tried to claim his leotard was.

Still, Dick was a bleeding heart who needed to help people, and he was a _hyper_ bleeding heart, so she could tell how much he loved to be running and flipping along the Gotham rooftops, looking for some heinous crime to disrupt with a pun and a well-timed fist. Honestly, the boy was a puppy, and after years of kittens, he was both refreshing and terrifying at the same time. It’d been a year, just last month, since she and Bruce had made their nighttime romance official, with the papers and everything, and she still sometimes felt like she had no idea what to do with their adopted son.

Oh, that was another thing that she’d dealt with. She’d wandered into the Manor the day they got engaged, and had awkwardly asked Dick how he felt about her marrying his dad. _That_ conversation ended with her yelling at Bruce about being at least _moderately_ open with his feelings and not being a commitmentphobe anymore. 

Dick had been officially adopted by both of them just after the wedding.

Like he should have been _years_ before, but it was a small victory.

But yeah, patrol made her confusing, wonderful, uncertain life fade from her mind for a few short hours every night. She focused instead on the rush of wind across what little exposed skin her outfit showed, on the rush of adrenaline as she leaped from one roof to the next, on tracking the scream to its source and beating the shit out of whatever mugger or rapist was unlucky enough to get caught in her wrath. 

Those weren’t the _only_ things she noticed, though.

“I hurt my wrist,” she said, a tad dramatically.

Bruce turned his head slightly, and she knew that underneath that cowl, he was raising an eyebrow at her. He didn’t believe her. 

Oh well. He didn’t have to believe her. He just had to _accommodate_ her. She was his wife, after all. 

She held up her right wrist and let it flop with an exaggerated frown. “I don’t think I can hold onto my whip. You’d better carry me, Bats.”

A nearly-smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and she grinned. She loved cracking Batman. It was so much harder, but so much more rewarding than cracking Bruce Wayne. 

Bruce extended an arm, and she strolled up, rocking her hips back and forth a bit farther than normal, then laced her arms around his neck and jumped up, wrapping her legs around his hips. Both his arms came around her and pressed her tightly against his body as his mouth met hers, like he was scared that she was going to leave if he gave her any room to wriggle away. 

_Hah!_

She was going _nowhere_.

She deepened the kiss, slipping her tongue into his mouth. He returned the favor, his tongue crashing into hers so fast that it forced her tongue back into her own mouth in its rush. She smiled and bit him lightly. She loved his stupid giant tongue.

Not all she liked.

She pulled away and leaned up to his ear. “Wanna make Alfred real happy?”

Bruce paused, then frowned and looked down at her. “ _What_?”

She leaned her body more against him and smirked. “Not right away. In…nine or so months, don’t you think?”

Bruce smiled and put his mouth against the bare skin of the crook of her neck. “Hmm, I think that sounds like a great idea. Here?”

Selina laughed and kissed him one more time. It wouldn’t have been the weirdest place they’d ever indulged themselves, and not even the most public, but that wasn’t happening tonight. 

“You smell like you got dragged through a landfill, hon.” She kissed his cheek and dropped down, landing on her toes on the uneven gravel roof. “You need a shower before any baby-making.”

Bruce made a half-way indignant scoff, but she noticed that he was breathing a little deeper. Trying to check to see if she was right without giving her the satisfaction of letting her see him actually smell himself.

Selina pulled her whip from her hip and cracked it around a fire escape railing on the next building. “I’ll race you to the car!”

She leaped from the building, and the game was on. She could hear him behind her, nearly silent as he caught up, then passed her. She was _not_ losing though, and ran faster. The car was only a few alleys away, and she could still beat him if she sprinted.

She was built for stealth, though, not physical endurance and chases like him, and she was outmatched. Dang. He was going to be insufferable about that.

Just on the lip of the building above the Batmobile, Bruce paused, and the half of her brain that screeched _SWEET VICTORY IS MINE_ was barely restrained by the side of her brain that knew that Bruce wouldn’t have stopped without a reason. Probably a dangerous reason that was going to ruin the mood.

Selina silently crossed the roof to him and stopped at his side, following his gaze to-

Oh, crap.

She snorted into her hand. She couldn’t help it.

There was a kid—there was a little baby—down there, stealing their tires. Straight off the Batmobile. From their bat’s eye view, they could see the three the boy had already stashed behind the dumpster and the fourth that he was still working on.

The boy froze when he heard her, and his head snapped up. She could see his eyes widen in shock and his hand fly up over his mouth, and she chuckled, finding it all very amusing until the shock turned to terror and he screamed into his hand.

The boy jumped to his feet and turned to run just as Bruce grappled the side of the next building and jumped down. Selina was only a moment behind.

It took Bruce barely two steps with his long legs to catch the little boy by the upper arm. The boy screamed again and tried to brain Bruce with the tire iron in his other hand, but Bruce grabbed his free wrist and wrenched them both behind his back.

The boy gasped and dropped the tire iron, but Selina could see from where she was that the grip Bruce had on the boy was kinder and gentler than what he’d used on Dick earlier that day. The kid was startled, scared definitely, but not hurt.

“Who are you working for?” Bruce growled, his voice all Batman and intense in a way that most people would take for anger, but which she knew was the Batman™ version of panicking at the thought of a little boy being caught up in the meatgrinder of Gotham’s gangs and Rogues. 

Bruce, for all that he loved the city, didn’t know its underbelly as well as he thought. Selina could tell that the boy didn’t work for anyone. His clothes were ragged and filthy, far too thin and holey for the nip in the air, and his face was all sharp and angular from a lack of food. If he had _been_ working for someone, he would have looked less starved, and if he was just _starting_ working for someone, there was no way that they would have trusted him with jacking the tires from the Batmobile for his first job. No, the little kid her husband had in his arms was just hungry and desperate.

Something in her softened, the way it had all those years ago when she saw Dick in those awful underwear. It was a feeling that came more easily now with children who weren’t her own, lost kids or victims or witness she’d come across on patrol. 

“I’m not working for no one!” the boy begged, tugging weakly on his shoulders in a vain attempt to try to get free. He sounded dangerously close to tears.

Selina stepped past her husband and crouched in front of their little thief. The glow of a nearby streetlamp let her see his features—or guess at them behind the thick layer of dirt. His hair was dark, either black or brown, and curly. It needed a thorough washing badly enough that Selina was willing to bet that he wasn’t being taken care of by anyone. His pale skin had dark splotches of bruises below the grime. His hunger was even more apparent from the front, not just in how _skinny_ he was, but in the desperate gleam in his big blue eyes, and the way he was clearly _trying_ to struggle against Bruce, but not doing very well.

“Hey, kitten,” she said before Bruce, paranoid freak that he was, could ask what the boy meant by that double negative. She could _see_ that question about to spring from his mouth, and gave him a slight warning look.

The little boy whimpered and tried to pull back from her, but that just forced him against Bruce’s chest. The boy screwed his eyes tight shut like he was trying not to cry, then just slumped in Bruce’s hold in resignation and dread.

“Please don’t kill me,” he whispered, raising watery blue eyes mournfully to her.

“Oh, kitten,” Selina hushed, raising her hand before she could think of it and trailing it against his bruised cheekbone. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

The little boy inhaled sharply and flinched, but leaned into the touch with his eyes closed again when she tried to pull back. After a moment, he gasped again and pulled back, looking just as surprised as she was.

In that single sequence of events, Selina was sure of several things at once. First, the boy had been abused at some point to be so sure that the heroes were going to literally kill him for the crime of being hungry and to be flinching from gentle touch. And stealing their tires, but neither of them cared so much about that. Second, the boy was touch starved and needed _all_ of the hugs. Third, there was no one in his life at the moment who was going to solve those problems.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Selina asked, slowly raising one hand and letting it rest just next to the boy’s face. 

He looked at her hand with intense longing and intense fear at the same time, like he wanted to let his face be caressed again, but he was terrified that she was planning something awful.

“I-I’m J-J-” the boy stammered, his voice shaking as shudders began to tremble through his body. “’m Jason.”

“Jason,” Selina purred. “I like that name.”

Jason just stared at her, then hesitantly, with his eyes wide, brushed his face against her hand for just a split second before pulling back. 

Selina’s heart was gone from the tightly-sealed fireproof airtight people-proof safe that she kept it in. She’d given copies to Bruce and Alfred, but only Dick had even been able to manage to steal it so completely. The little boy, who didn’t look older than eight or nine, who had been brave enough to steal Batman’s tires but who was terrified when he got caught, the little boy with the blue eyes and messy hair, he had stolen her heart and she was fairly certain that she was never getting it back. 

Wordlessly, she opened her arms. Jason leaned forward immediately as far as Bruce’s grip would let him, then stopped, glanced back up at Bruce, and quickly retreated back up against the man. Selina cut Bruce a glare, which he returned with a slight questioning tilt to his head. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and he hesitated only a moment longer before releasing Jason’s arms.

Jason surged into Selina’s arms and threw his own around her neck, burying his face against her skin where Bruce had been only minutes before and latching on like he expected Bruce or someone else to try to muscle him away. Selina wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him just as tight. It was only a minute before his little ribcage started to spaz, and her neck started to get wet with the nearly-silent tears. 

Selina made a soft shushing noise as she rocked back and sat down, hoping that she wasn’t going to shift half an inch and end up with a dirty drug needle in her butt cheek. It was Gotham, though, so she held her ass still as she reached behind her and slowly disentangled Jason’s fingers from each other. He cried out in wordless dismay, but she just kissed the side of his face and pulled him away from her neck so she could cradle him against her chest.

Jason let himself be guided to a more comfortable position once he realized that she wasn’t trying to get rid of him, and Selina pet his poor little head and back as he cried. 

After a few minutes, Bruce extended a tissue to her, and she nodded her thanks before using it to wipe away some of the tears and grime from his cheek, revealing that some of what she’d thought was dirt was actually a splattering of freckles. She smiled and took a fresh tissue from Bruce, who then picked up Jason’s tire iron, grabbed one of the wheels from behind the dumpster, and returned to the car. It must have been his allergies to emotions acting up; she didn’t blame him.

“Do you wanna blow your nose? You sound pretty stuffed up, sweetie,” she soothed, holding the tissue over his nose. 

A small, spidery hand came up and slipped under hers, taking the tissue away and blowing his nose into it himself. Selina smiled sadly, not sure if that was a young boy’s independence, or Jason not trusting people to take care of him.

“Is Batman gonna beat me?” Jason whispered at last, fiddling with the edges of the tissue, his voice almost inaudible as squished as his face was against her shoulder.

Selina glanced up at Bruce as he started wrangling on the third tire, tension and fury in every line of his body as he spun the tire iron. Jason’s gaze followed hers and his little body tensed against hers. Jason couldn’t read Bruce like she could, though. 

“He’s not mad at you,” Selina whispered back. “Batman protects kids. He’s mad that someone hurt you.”

Jason looked up at her, his nose and eyebrows all wrinkled in confusion. She gently tapped a finger against a few of the bruises on his face.

“What happened here?” she asked him.

Jason turned his face back against her shoulder and shrugged like it didn’t matter, but she could feel the way his body shook and the tears in his eyes. He’d been scared, and was still scared.

“I tried to get some food from a gas station,” Jason said, his voice becoming wobbly and tearful, but he wasn’t crying yet. “I got caught, and the cashier had his friends beat me up. They said they was gonna- was gonna- touch-”

Jason’s breathing turned ragged, and Selina’s heart stopped. 

“They were going to rape you?” she whispered, a deadly calm edging into her words. 

Tomorrow night, she and Bruce were going to find the cashier and his _friends_ , and there would be _hell_ to pay.

Jason nodded miserably, and a small sob shook his shoulders. “I-I bit one of ‘em, and the other started tryin’a pull my pants down, but then the garbage truck came and they ran away ‘fore they could get caught.”

Selina had never felt so relieved in her life, even as Jason devolved into fresh sobs and her hand rubbed circles on his back on autopilot. That was still a horrible, traumatic event for the little boy, but it could have been worse. It could have been permanently scarring, or even _deadly_ for the hungry little boy.

“When was this?” she asked him when the sobs had lessened to hiccoughs and sniffs.

Jason knit his brow, then shrugged. “Three days ago.”

“Okay, kitten. You’re going to be safe. We’re going to get them,” Selina promised, planting a kiss on his forehead. 

She planted another on his nose before realizing that, in light of what he’d just told her about people assuming they could touch Jason how they pleased, she probably should have asked. Jason made a soft noise of contentment, though, so she supposed it was fine.

Bruce passed by her on his way to get the fourth tire and quickly signed the word _parents_ to her. She nodded and turned back to Jason.

“We’d better get you home, sweetheart,” Selina cooed, feeling sick with herself, but they had to know where they could take the boy.

Jason flinched and fisted his fingers into her suit. He was stretching the material, but she hardly noticed and didn’t mind. 

“M-my mama’s dead,” Jason mumbled.

“And your father?”

Jason cried out like he’d been hit and shook his head violently. “Please, please don’t make me go back to him! Please! Please, you can’t make me go back!”

“Sh, sh,” Selina soothed, running a hand over his matted hair. 

She let her fingernails trail along his scalp, and Jason melted bonelessly against her, but he was trembling like a leaf. His scalp felt _gritty_ in a way that it shouldn’t’ve, and she didn’t like that at all. Carefully, so that he didn’t see and think that she was judging him, Selina raised her fingernails behind his head and angled them toward the streetlamp. 

She had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop the vicious scowl that threatened to snap onto her face. Jason was clearly an abuse survivor of some sort and wouldn’t likely take her anger well, but she was furious.

Underneath her fingernails was sweat, grime, flea dirt, and one wriggling little flea. Flea dirt was a nice way of saying flea excrement. She’d taken in enough stray kittens to know what it looked like, and to know how miserable fleas made her rescues, especially the young ones. 

Fleas on cats never made her as mad as she was with the tiny little boy cradled in her arms, though. She loved cats, she really did, to an extent that most people found absurd, but she understood that that was a _her_ thing. It _should_ be an everyone thing, but it wasn’t. Yet. She understood that outdoor cats got fleas, and that some cats _preferred_ the outdoors. She helped them when she could, with flea collars, baths, and medicine, but she didn’t get _mad_.

 _Children_ were not for the outdoors. _Children_ should not have fleas. 

Jason’s father, wherever he was, whoever he was, must have been truly terrible if starving on the streets, being nearly raped, and being eaten alive by fleas were all preferable to returning to him, and that man was going on the list of people who were going to _pay_.

“I won’t give you back to him, kitten,” she whispered. “You’re safe with me.” 

Jason inhaled sharply, then flinched. He snatched her hand as it was petting him, and she was about to pull it back for fear of having invaded his space, but he just pressed it to his chest and held it tightly there. He lolled his head against her neck so that she couldn’t see his face, but she could feel the fresh hot tears. 

Then she understood.

Jason _was_ safe with her, and he knew it, but he was _only_ safe with her. As soon as she left, no matter whether she took him to foster care or just let him go, he was going to be in danger again.

She didn’t know how long Bruce had been standing there, or how much he’d heard, when she finally looked up, her face pale and her whole body numb.

He must have read her the same way she’d read him earlier, because she could see him hesitate, then nod his agreement. She let go of a breath she hadn’t known that she was holding and smiled at him in thanks. He smiled slightly back and knelt in front of her.

Slowly, cautiously, Bruce raised a hand and set it on Jason’s head.

Jason jumped violently and nearly tumbled out of Selina’s arms with a yelp. She could feel him tense against her when his eyes fell on the massive vigilante in front of him. He likely still thought that Bruce would hurt him, since Bruce was not only a man like Jason’s father, but he was also the recognized owner of the car, and, therefore, the person Jason had tried to steal from. Jason’s relationship must have been much better with his deceased mother if it didn’t even occur to him to be frightened of Selina. It _was,_ after all, technically her car too.

Jason would learn, though, that Bruce was a massive pushover who would gladly spoil the boy and never raise a violent hand against him without express permission. Selina didn’t want Jason to be sparring, though. Maybe self-defense training, but he was too young and tiny to be a vigilante. He would _always_ be too young and tiny to be a vigilante. 

She ran a hand over his hair, and Bruce pulled his hand back.

“Jason, will you come with us?” Bruce asked, his voice kind and gentle. It was all Bruce Wayne, no Batman gargling rocks to be heard.

Jason’s breath hitched, then started to come fast with panic. “B-but you can’t prove anything! You can’t prove that I stole anything!”

“We’re not trying to get you thrown in juvie,” Selina promised, but Jason turned his wild, teary eyes on her.

“No, no! You can’t give me to the police at all, please! You can’t prove anything, so they’re gonna give me back to my dad!”

Selina tightened her arms around him, and Bruce lay a hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“Jason,” Bruce said, only the faintest hints of anger in his voice as he obviously tried to restrain himself. “I don’t know what your father did, or why you are scared of him, but we will not give you back to someone who’s going to hurt you.”

“B-but then what are ya gonna do with me?” Jason whispered, threading his fingers between Selina’s captive ones splayed across his chest still and holding them very tight.

“We want you to come home with us,” Bruce answered simply and extended a hand to the little boy.

Selina purred at the idea and rested her head on Jason’s. She might get a flea or two, but she could wash them out. Besides, she was already going to be thoroughly scrubbing Jason’s head free of the bugs the second it was possible. It wouldn’t be that much extra work to wash her own hair later. 

“What do you say, stray?” She kissed his head. “Come be our kitten?”

Jason stared at them both in awed shock, then very, very slowly, nodded his head. 

Bruce smiled and extended his hand a little farther. 

Jason glanced to her, and it took her a moment to realize what he wanted. She nodded her approval and gave Jason a slight nudge. Jason took a deep breath, released it, and tentatively laid his hand on Bruce’s palm. Bruce’s massive hand enveloped his tiny little fingers, and Jason tensed with a small squeak, but didn’t try to pull away. 

Bruce helped Jason to his feet, and Selina stood up on his other side, rearranging her fingers in his to make them more easily to hold, but she didn’t let go. His grubby hand was so small and warm in hers, calloused from his tire iron, and rough from hard living. 

He was safe now, though.

Selina looked up with a big grin at Bruce, and was proud to see it reflected on Bruce’s face. That was a Bruce smile, not a Batman smile.

Together, the Bat and the Cat led their new baby Bird to the car and helped him inside. He hesitated, and made them promise again that they weren’t taking him to his dad or the cops, then he climbed up into the passenger seat. They hadn’t taken the Batmobile with a back seat, so Selina crawled in after him and buckled him onto her lap.

Bruce turned on the heater immediately, and after a brief blast of the frigid air already in the pipes, the air turned warm and comforting for their new little baby. He slumped against Selina, his eyes quickly drooping. His breathing was soft and rhythmic against her chest, and the rabbit heartbeat that she’d felt when Bruce started the car had slowed to something calm and relaxed. Poor thing must have been exhausted, and, as the adrenaline of the last hour—maybe even the last however long he’d been on the streets—was fading as he found himself safe, he was about to pass out right their in his new mother’s arms.

“I suppose Alfred always gets his way in the end,” Selina murmured a few minutes later into the top of Jason’s head. He wasn’t moving anymore, but she couldn’t see if he was actually asleep.

Bruce snorted quietly. “I guess he does.”

**Author's Note:**

> I felt better tonight than I have in weeks, and I'm probably going to regret this later, but I've missed _writing_ and _accomplishing things_ so _much_! I caught covid right after my last upload, and even though I didn't have a severe case or anything - just a cold that made me really tired, essentially - I have had really horrible post-covid chronic fatigue, and I just realized about a week ago what it was and started a treatment for it that has been helping a bit. I've had so much trouble thinking and doing anything that involved intense focus or fine grammar skills, so everything I wrote got jumbled. I've had a couple of good days, which usually led me to making promises of uploading which were quickly quashed by a desperate need for naps, but finally, _FINALLY_ , I'm back!
> 
> Also, like, that kiss was really awkward to write and I was going off of movies and YA romance subplots...I'm not really into romantic books, and I've never actually kissed anyone? Idk how I did? But...yeah? And the attraction bit????????? I was going based on how I feel about my bookshelves, kind of, but without the, y'know...physical bit. Just intense appreciation? By looking? *awkward asexual arm flailing* It was so weird and all you allosexual people are _freaks_. 
> 
> Oh, and Jason doesn't die because Selina's an awesome mom who doesn't let her kid run off to Ethiopia without permission.


End file.
